Death penalty trial opens for Obel Cruz-Garcia, accused of abducting and killing 6-year-old Angelo Garcia in 1992 July 8, 2013 in Houston. More than 20 years ago, two armed men in ski masks forced their way ... more

Photo: Eric Kayne, For The Chronicle

Bereaved mother testifies about 1992 abduction in murder trial

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The Houston woman buried her face in her hands Monday, sobbing as she recounted a home invasion 20 years ago in which she was raped, her husband beaten and her 6-year-old son kidnapped and later killed.

One of the attackers had tied her hands behind her back as she lay face down on her bed, she testified in a Harris County courtroom, while another assailant pistol-whipped her husband.

"He started touching me on my back, then he turned me over and raped me," the woman testified between tears. "He did that monstrous thing in front of Arturo and Baby Angelo."

She was the third witness on the first day of the death penalty trial of Obel Cruz-Garcia. The 45-year-old is charged with capital murder, accused of kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Angelo Garcia Jr.

Earlier in the day, prosecutors told jurors that a cocaine-trafficking operation was at the center of the assault and kidnapping on Sept. 30, 1992.

Assistant Harris County District Attorney Justin Wood said in opening statements that the boy's mother and stepfather and the men accused of taking and killing their son were linked by drugs.

"They're going to tell you, 'We sold drugs for that man, Obel Cruz-Garcia, or Chico as he was called then,' " Wood told jurors about testimony expected from the mother and stepfather. "And when they say drugs, it was always cocaine."

Cruz-Garcia has denied any involvement in the home invasion, the abduction or the child's death.

Wood said Cruz-Garcia and another man, wearing ski masks, broke into the south Houston apartment where the family lived, beat the boy's stepfather and raped his mother.

It was a few months after the couple stopped selling cocaine because they believed the police were watching their home.

After the men tied the couple up during the home invasion, they ransacked the home, took a wallet and jewelry and left, allegedly taking the boy with them.

A day after the abduction, the boy's parents told investigators what happened.

Wood said DNA evidence left behind during the sexual assault and on a cigar matched Cruz-Garcia when it was tested in 2007. Cruz-Garcia, who fled to Puerto Rico within 36 hours of the abduction, was brought back to Houston in 2008 to face trial.

The prosecutor said jurors are expected to hear from the man who drove Cruz-Garcia and another man to the family's apartment the night of the attack.

That man, now serving prison time in Pennsylvania for drugs, is expected to tell jurors that Cruz-Garcia brought the child to the car and put him in.

Wood said jurors would hear that the three men took the boy to a remote location and stabbed him to death.

The men then allegedly put his weighted body in Baytown's Goose Creek Lake, where it was found about six weeks later.

Defense attorney Skip Cornelius told jurors they would have to consider four things before finding Cruz-Garcia guilty of capital murder: the credibility of an admitted drug-dealing family, the credibility of a co-defendant who has everything to gain by lying, what the DNA actually proves and what the medical evidence shows.

Cruz-Garcia remains in the Harris County Jail without bail.

The trial, in state District Judge Renee Magee's court, is expected to last about two weeks.